High school hockey star takes shot at reffing

Sunday

Dec 27, 2009 at 2:00 AM

Like many kids, Geoff Miller used to dream about someday becoming a professional athlete. Miller's sport was ice hockey, and he lived and breathed it the way children so often do. He spent many an hour on the pond, at the rink, and in the driveway at the North Hampton home of his parents, Steven and Suzette.

MIKE SULLIVAN

Like many kids, Geoff Miller used to dream about someday becoming a professional athlete. Miller's sport was ice hockey, and he lived and breathed it the way children so often do. He spent many an hour on the pond, at the rink, and in the driveway at the North Hampton home of his parents, Steven and Suzette.

Miller took shot after shot, imagining what it might be like to score the game-winning goal in the Stanley Cup Finals. He was pretty good, too, and went on to captain the Winnacunnet High School hockey team. But playing beyond that level, as is the case for most of us, wasn't to be.

Following graduation in 2003, Miller's playing career was over with the exception of some competitive club hockey at Northeastern University in Boston.

"All along, hockey was the dream and I wanted to play in the NHL," Miller recalled. "As you get older, you realize the chances of that happening isn't realistic. To get to that level, you have to be really good."

While still in high school, Miller began "reffing" youth hockey games. He seemed to have a knack for it, but at that point it was a means to an end. It was all about the Benjamins.

"I enjoyed doing it and it kept me in the game, but it was a paycheck," he said with a laugh. "When you're young, in high school and college, that's important."

Brown heads up the New Hampshire Evaluation Program for USA Hockey, and he's been around a while. He can spot talent in striped shirts pretty quickly, and he saw it the first time he watched Miller work a game at Dover Ice Arena in 2006.

"I just looked across the rink and saw this guy and said to myself, 'where in the hell did this guy come from?'" Brown said. "He showed me some skills you don't see too often. Geoff Miller is just a rare, rare talent. He's just so refined. He's such a fantastic person and a solid official."

High praise indeed, and indicative of the meteoric rise Miller is now enjoying through the seemingly endless maze of hockey leagues.

Since graduating from Northeastern in 2008, Miller has worked his way through hockey's amateur ranks and is now working professional games in the International Hockey League.

Scott Brandt, the referee in chief of the USA Hockey Officiating Development Program, thinks it will only be a year or two before Miller is working games for the American Hockey League, which includes the Manchester Monarchs and Portland Pirates. That's the final step before the NHL.

Like Brown, Brandt has been a good guy for Miller to know, but more importantly, a good guy to be impressing. Brandt has been impressed with Miller's skating abilities, fitness level, knowledge of the game, and character, all necessary attributes for a referee aiming to make it to the big leagues.

"It's kind of like the 'it factor,' " Brandt said. "Do they have it? Do they have a respect for the game? Geoff does. He has the 'it factor.' I have confidence that he's going to be one of our top guys at the end of the year."

Being a referee and a player are quite different, but there are quite a few similarities, especially when you're trying to make it to the highest level.

"It's the exact same mindset as being a player," Miller said. "You've got to put the time in. You make very little money."

The fitness levels are comparable, too.

"As a player, you go out there for 45 to 50 seconds at a time, bust your butt on the ice, then you get to go sit down and get a drink," Miller said. "As a referee, we don't have that luxury. We go goal line to goal line for 60 minutes. You almost have to be in better physical shape than the players."

"At the end of the day, you can control most of the game, but 10 percent of it you can't," Miller said. "It can be stressful. You can't take anything personally. As soon as you let your heart get into the feel of the game, all control is lost."

Prior to reaching the NHL, referees don't make much money. You work late nights, so what is open for dinner at 11 p.m.? Fast food. Sure, Burger King promises to make it "Your Way," but that doesn't include steamed chicken and veggies or a lean turkey burger on whole wheat that you should be eating because you have to stay in tip-top shape.

The travel is daunting, too. Miller left New Hampshire for his home base (this year) in Des Moines, Iowa, in August, fresh off a stint as head counselor for the summer rec program in North Hampton, and has driven more than 10,000 miles since. He'll easily log 50,000 miles over an eight-month span.

Despite the challenges that come with the hockey life he has chosen, Miller is sticking with it. He just loves it too much to turn back now.

"The travel is a pain in the neck, but when you step out onto that ice and feel the excitement, the enthusiasm and the love of the game from the players, you can't beat it."

Working in front of a crowd of hockey nuts is fun, too.

"Being on that ice in front of four-, five-, six-, seven-thousand fans, depending on what barn you're working that night, and just taking it all in, is incredible," he said.

Still, this isn't what he pictured when he was a kid playing in the driveway.

"If you told me 10 years ago I'd be doing what I'm doing now, I would have said you were crazy," Miller said. "I absolutely, 100 percent did not envision this. But I would give anything to work in the NHL. I want it for me, for my family, and for everyone who has helped me along the way."

The kid from North Hampton isn't going to score the game-winning goal in a championship hockey game, but he just might make the call that decides one.

Either way, Geoff Miller is on his way to realizing his childhood dream of making it to the big time.

He's just taking a different path to get there.

Mike Sullivan is a Seacoast Sunday columnist. His column appears every week, and you can also read him Mondays or Tuesdays in Portsmouth Herald Sports. Sullivan can be reached at sullywrites@comcast.net.

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